Republican Lawmaker Says Clinton Wiped Email Server Clean

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, March 23, 2015 Photo: Reuters/Joshua Roberts

(Reuters) - The Republican chairman of a U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks said on Friday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had failed to respond to the panel's subpoena for documents in the case.

Representative Trey Gowdy said Clinton had not provided a single new document and had wiped clean a server she used for emails while she was the top U.S. diplomat.

"We learned today, from her attorney, Secretary Clinton unilaterally decided to wipe her server clean and permanently delete all emails from her personal server," Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said in a statement.

He said the committee will seek to speak to Clinton, the presumed front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, about the emails and the server.

Clinton, who used a private email address, has said she has already given copies of all her work-related emails to the State Department.

The State Department has said it has already given Gowdy's committee all the relevant emails from that cache, some 300 in all, about the attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Members of Gowdy's committee say they need to see all of Clinton's emails, including those she did not give to the State Department, to be sure of this.

But the top Democrat on the committee, Representative Elijah Cummings, said the letter the panel received from Clinton's lawyer confirmed that Clinton had turned over all relevant emails.

"It is time for the Committee to stop this political charade and instead make these documents public and schedule Secretary Clinton’s public testimony now,” Cummings said in a statement.